KANSAS CITY, Kan. — John T. Booker Jr., a Topeka man convicted in a plot to detonate an explosive device at Fort Riley, was sentenced Monday to a life term of 30 years in a federal prison.

Booker, 22, pleaded guilty on February 3, 2016, to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy government property by fire or explosion. In exchange for the guilty pleas, a third charge of providing material support to the Islamic State was dismissed.

Booker was sentenced to 30 years for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and to 20 years for attempting to destroy government property. The sentences will run concurrently.

After completing the sentences, Booker will be under lifetime supervised release on the conviction of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and a concurrent supervision of three years on the attempting to destroy government property, U.S. District Court Judge Carlos Murguia said….

During a rambling statement he made to Murguia, Booker complained that he wasn’t given help to deal with his mental health issues.

If he had received money to help him deal with his problems, Booker wouldn’t be in court facing two sentences Monday, Booker told the judge.

However, after Booker’s sentencing, FBI officials disagreed with Booker, saying FBI agents, who initially identified themselves to Booker as federal agents, had sought to aid Booker with his mental health problems, sometimes driving him to appointments if he needed transportation.

“We wanted to get him the mental health help he thought he needed,” said Aaron Tapp, supervisory special agent in charge in Topeka.

To help Booker, the FBI also contacted a local Topeka mosque, contacted Imam Omar Hazim at the mosque to talk to Booker, and attempted to get people in the mosque to aid Booker, Tapp said.

The FBI met with Booker’s family, who said they had done everything they could to help him, Tapp said.

Agents monitored Booker to see whether he had changed, Tapp said.

But when Booker’s behavior and his radical Islamic beliefs continued, Darrin E. Jones said, then the FBI conducted an undercover operation and arrested him after he agreed to detonate what he thought was an explosive device at Fort Riley.

Jones is the special agent in-charge of the Kansas City field office of the FBI. The device was inert, meaning it wouldn’t explode….

The FBI’s first contact with Booker was in March 2014 when someone complained to the FBI that Booker had posted on Facebook that intended “to commit jihad and that he was not scared to die,” the factual basis for his guilty plea said….